194 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



caguars are getting scarcer than ever, and as for 

 buffaloes, they are clean exterminated.' And all the 

 time they were talking, they kept leaping and gallop- 

 ing about like madmen. 



" ' The sooner the bears and caguars are killed the 

 better,' said Asa ' The land is not for dumb brutes, 

 but for men.' 



"The Creoles, however, persisted that we had no 

 right to hunt where we were, and swore we should 

 go away. Then Asa asked them what right they had 

 to send us away. This seemed to embarrass them, 

 and they muttered and talked together; so that it 

 was easy to see there was no magistrate or person in 

 authority amongst them, but that they were a party 

 of fellows who had come in hopes to frighten us. 

 At last they said they should inform the governor, 

 and the commandant at i^atchitoches, and the Lord 

 knows who besides ; that we had come and squatted 

 ourselves down here, and built houses, and cleared 

 fields, and all without right or permission ; and that 

 then we might look out. So Asa began to lose 

 patience, and told them they might all go to the devil, 

 and that, if they Avere not off soon, he should be apt 

 to hasten their movements. 



" ' I must have my horse back,' screamed the Creole 

 whom they called Croupier. 



" ' You shall,' replied Asa, ' both of them, if you 

 return the five-and-thirty dollars.' 



" ' It was only fifteen dollars,' cried the lying Creole. 



